Community Poetry Open Mic — First Thursdays in January, February, and March 2022.

 

For the months of January, February, and March in 2022, Berks Bards will not be hosting any features poets. Instead, we will offer 100% open mic nights on First Thursdays so that more of those who are interested across communities locally, regionally, and out of state, who appreciate our nonprofit's focus, can use this as an opportunity to read their poetry during our events.

With this in mind, we encourage any writers who are interested to find old poems they'd like to share, to use this as a chance to work on new poetry to prepare and share, and to spread word about this to friends you may know who you think would appreciate the chance to read during our open mics. You are welcome to share this news onward, if you know anyone who might like to hear of this opportunity.

Below are the dates for these First Thursday events with Berks Bards, for reference.

When—
Thursday, January 6, 2022 @ 6 pm EST
Thursday, February 3, 2022 @ 6 pm EST
Thursday, March 3, 2022 @ 6 pm EST

Anyone who would like to sign up for these open mics can do so on Zoom via chat during the evenings of these events. We may change the parameters of sign-ups to be earlier and advance in the future, so please always check back for updates.

Where—TinyURL.com/VirtualBard to reach us on Zoom

Bring your poems. Bring your friends. Tell your friends to bring their poems. We look forwarding to seeing you where poetry moves across screens, one voice at a time.

Upcoming Optional Poetry Themes—
January = Change; New
February = Black History
March = Women
April = Poetry
May = Summer

We will likely bring back featured poet reading + shorter open mics in April 2022, once National Poetry Month is here. Stay tuned for more news closer to then. And as always, onward with poetry.

Tyler Barton on Zoom—Thursday, December 2nd, 2021, at 6 pm EST.

Join Tyler Barton on Zoom!


When: Thursday, December 2nd, 2021, at 6 pm EST


Where: TinyURL.com/VirtualBard to reach us on Zoom

And below is a sample piece from our featured poet:

 

Eternal Night at the Nature Museum, a Half-Hour Downriver from Three Mile Island

On the roof grows a tree Facilities kills every summer. Killed, rather. As the men from Facilities are gone. As everyone—staff, faculty, public—is gone, gone for what Harrisburg still calls temporary. The museum belongs to no one now. Or rather, belongs to that tree, or to the animals and their chewed-through glass, or to the time we lost a snake, every time we lost a snake we couldn’t find for days and stayed open for visitors anyway. What I mean is the museum belongs to, I don’t know, some kid? The one I sensed hiding in every building I ever closed down for the night. The same kid I imagined stowing away inside the tree trunk, or the shark’s mouth, or the trash tote in the mop closet—this milk-mouthed kid with nothing to lose, too spooked to say uncle after having chosen hiding, now living out what was never a Disneyland fantasy but rather the lesser of two let-downs. Life, alone in a building full of owl eggs, appeal letters, revisionist archeology, and arctic wolves who leap like puppies, glass eyes gleaming through their taxidermy. The building belongs to, yes, this starved sapling of a person. And the minute the kid finishes the fish food, cracks two teeth on hematite, retches up the crickets, licks all the pollen from the dead bees legs—the climbing begins. Up stairs. Up stories. Learning from the lizards who clawed away their cages, this kid will bore with whittled obsidian and patience a hole through the 3rd floor utility door. Behind which lies the ladder, and so, the roof. And so, the tree. And so, the fruit.

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Below is a video of poems written by residents of the Hamilton Arms Long Term Care Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Tyler ran a 12-week workshop with these late 2019 and early 2020, and together, he helped them to make a chapbook of their work. Many residents died from COVID-19 just before the project was completed.

 

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POETRY OPEN MIC!

There will be an open mic segment following the featured poet; those who are interested in participating in the open mic can sign up for it in the chat on Zoom, once the main monthly event starts.

Enzo Silon Surin on Zoom—Thursday, November 4th, 2021, at 6 pm EST.

Join Enzo Silon Surin on Zoom!


When: Thursday, November 4th, 2021, at 6 pm EST


Where: TinyURL.com/VirtualBard to reach us on Zoom

And below is a sample poem from our featured poet:

 

Birth of A Clinched Fist

Born in epidemic—circa 1986 Jamaica,
Queens—when tiny white caps filled—
modern-day cotton—moored most under

a parking lot's dim cone of light—when
paraded in chambers of those born to triggers
was that sin which weaned father

from son; tricked out the best in us—
a resilient few kept from boxes,
though what was left was worsted in haze

on those horrid nights—when what was
promissory was plight was norm,
and what was dealt—mnemonic so strong

I kept it in my mind like one rehearsing
lines in an orograph for pain—
a pain, like bait, that turned gain

into the cleanest demise—when I stood
to cleave it, the fight empty as cavity,
the strife—marked by omission. Everything

I saw was enemy—even this face, fair game.


Enzo Silon Surin, "Birth of A Clinched Fist" from When My Body Was A Clinched Fist.  Copyright © 2020 by Enzo Silon Surin. Source: When My Body Was A Clinched Fist (Black Lawrence Press, 2020)

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Enjoy these poetry samplings by Enzo Silon Surin via the video below.

 

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POETRY OPEN MIC!

There will be an open mic segment following the featured poet; those who are interested in participating in the open mic can sign up for it in the chat on Zoom, once the main monthly event starts.

Anne Harding Woodworth on Zoom—Thursday, October 7th, 2021, at 6 pm EST.

Join Anne Harding Woodworth on Zoom!


When: Thursday, October 7th, 2021, at 6 pm EST


Where: TinyURL.com/VirtualBard to reach us on Zoom

And below is a sample poem from our featured poet:

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Parking At Any Time

 

I emerged from a womb
drugged with sodium pentothal.
Everything in slow motion:
slap, cry, fingers.
One. Five. Ten.
In no time, slow quickens.
I'm breathing
and speeding on my own road.
Twenty-five at first. Fifty-five.
Ninety. Ninety-five.
A hundred and ten--
to get there as fast as possible.
At any time, forgive my memories.
There are so many now.
I leave the rules to you.
I know I can't stay here.

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Enjoy this additional poem by Anne via the video below.

 

 

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POETRY OPEN MIC!

There will be an open mic segment following the featured poet; those who are interested in participating in the open mic can sign up for it in the chat on Zoom, once the main monthly event starts.

Patti Ross on Zoom—Thursday, September 2nd, 2021, at 6 pm EST.

Join Patti Ross on Zoom!


When: Thursday, September 2nd, 2021, at 6 pm EST


Where: TinyURL.com/VirtualBard to reach us on Zoom


If required, please enter the Meeting ID 759 062 6042

 

And below is a sample poem from our featured poet:

 

The Deposer

I was raped 36 years ago.
It is not on tape, no.
I do not want to remember,
But my limbs still go limp
When I hear that voice
That “yes” to my “no.”

My pleas went to deaf ears as
I lay there in tears stolen,
my girlish charm realizing
I could be harmed by a boy
I said no to. I said no!
Yeah, it happened to me too.


I tried deep inside to
Hide what had happen
I did not want to relive that.
It was hard enough to remember alone
Now the whole world would know.

My limbs still go limp when
I hear that voice that said “yes” to my “no.”
He said yes; I said no.

I am standing here in tears
Realizing my greatest fear:
That my pleas land on deaf ears.
I was raped 36 years ago.

It is not on tape. No!

 

This poem is dedicated to Christine Margaret Blasey Ford, Professor at Stanford University, who testified against Brett Michael Kavanaugh, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

 

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Enjoy this additional poem by Patti via the video below.

 

 

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POETRY OPEN MIC!

There will be an open mic segment following the featured poet; those who are interested in participating in the open mic can sign up for it in the chat on Zoom, once the main monthly event starts.

Join J.C. Todd at the GoggleWorks September 6th,2018

Berks Bards is excited to welcome J.C. Todd! Join us at the GoggleWorks to hear selected poetry. Following her reading, we'll allow ANYONE to step up to the mic and read anything that moves them. Learn more about J.C. Todd before our event by reading more below:

J. C. Todd, a Pew Fellow in the Arts and winner of the Rita Dove Poetry Prize is author of The Damages of Morning (Moonstone Press, 2018), What Space This Body (Wind Publications, 2008), and the artist books On Foot/By Hand and FUBAR (Lucia Press, 2018, 2016), both in collaboration with MaryAnn L. Miller. Her current work is concerned with the violence and displacement of war and intolerance. She has received fellowships and awards from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the New Jersey State Arts Council, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Ucross, Ragdale and Leeway foundations and was a 2016 writer-in-residence at Humboldt University in Berlin. She has taught in the Creative Writing Program at Bryn Mawr College and is on the faculty of the MFA Program at Rosemont College. 

Below is a sample of J.C. Todd's poetry:

Reading With Students About Death Camps

What escapes into you. Don't hide it. 

César Vallejo

The evidence,

their eyes filling to

with it, mine too,

memory's char curling

the edges of pages,

photographs, maps,

the sear of witness real as innards

twisting open the tropes

of bread crusts,

catalogued shoes, barrels

of gold from teeth.

Not our lives, but lives

of the dead, escaped

into us. Grave,

we open to them.

When: September 6th, 2018 at 6:45pm 
Where: The GoggleWorks Studio 411
201 Washington Street Reading PA 19601

Join Ryan Rettew at the GoggleWorks August 2nd, 2018!

Berks Bards is excited to welcome Ryan Rettew! Join us at the GoggleWorks to hear her music and poetry. Following the performance, we'll allow ANYONE to step up to the mic and read anything that moves them. Learn more about Ryan before our event by reading more below:

Ryan Rettew grew up in Berks County and is a 2004 graduate of Twin Valley High School. After high school, Ryan followed her love of reading and writing to study English at Clarion University where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in 2008.

While studying at Clarion University, Ryan received recognition for her poetry. Her work was published in the school's literary magazine, Tobeco. She also earned a scholarship to attend the Chautauqua Writer's Festival. Ryan discovered her unique poetic style when she began putting her words to music. Songwriting has become Ryan's primary means of poetic expression. She has given performances at several locations in and around Berks County, including Boyertown's Turning Leaf Festival, The Other Farm Brewing Company (now known as The Other Farm & Forge), and Chaplin's Music Cafe.

In her early twenties, Ryan came up against drug addiction and depression. She has continued to write throughout her journey in recovery from these challenges. She began a career in teaching in 2012. She now lives in Lancaster County with her husband, Jim and many pets. She is a stay-at-home mom to their daughter, Robin, and has plans to return to teaching soon.

Below is a sample of Ryan Rettew's work:

Lyrics to “Map of Faces”

There's a lake where I forget.

You can come forget there, too.

The map I drew

looks like faces of the people that you knew.

It's the only way

to reach that lake.

Loneliness is a killer.

Ears and eyes are traitors to the soul.

Forgetfulness is better.

It's just a natural part of getting old.

O prophets spoke

of you.

I swear

I knew you once.

Your name

escapes me now but since

we're here

let's go somewhere.

There's a lake where I forget.

You can come forget there, too.

The face I drew

looks like maps of all the places that you knew.

It's the only way

to reach that lake.

Loneliness is a killer.

Ears and eyes are traitors from the start.

Forgetfulness is better.

It's just a certain stillness of the heart.

O prophets spoke

of you.

I swear

I knew you once.

When: August 2nd, 2018 at 6pm 
Where: The GoggleWorks
201 Washington Street Reading PA 19601

Find us on Facebook and Twitter or join our Mailing List for more information

1st Thursday Poetry featuring Missi McLaren Ritter

Berks Bards is excited to welcome Missi McLaren Ritter! Join us at the GoggleWorks to hear from her poetry. Following her reading, we'll allow ANYONE to step up to the mic and read anything that moves them. Learn more about Missi McLaren Ritter before our event by reading more below:

Missi McLaren Ritter is a York poet and painter. Her poetry collections include Chronicles of the Amazing Broken Girl (Sunbury Press, 2010), Bi-the-Way (MMR Books 2012) and Pocket-Seized Low Fat Love Poems (Poem Sugar Press, 2015). Her poems have also been featured in the first collection of Below the Belt (Poem Sugar Press 2012) authors and in Reclaiming Our Voices (Poem Sugar Press 2013).

She is also a visual artist and a member of the King’s Courtyard Artists’ Collective at 124 E. King Street in downtown York, PA.

To meet the Missi McLaren Ritter, learn more about her work, or to simply hear all the readers at this event...come meet us there!

When: December 7th, 2017 at 6 pm 
Where: The GoggleWorks
201 Washington Street Reading PA 19601

Find us on Facebook and Twitter or join our Mailing List for more information

First Thursday February 4th - Beth Phillips Brown

February 4th 2010 at 6 p.m.

The Cucina Cafe at the GoggleWorks, 201 Washington ST, Reading PA
Featured poet is BETH PHILLIPS BROWN
Open mic to follow

Beth Phillips Brown is a poet and storyteller who carries her Welsh and Celtic ancestors’ oral traditions through two languages, English and Welsh. A fluent Welsh speaker, a teaching artist and a 2002 PCA Folk Arts Performing Traditions fellowship recipient, she aspires to the calling of cyfarwydd, the Welsh word for bard and tradition-bearer. Her most recent chapbook, Book of Enchantments, was published by Foothills Publishing in Summer 2007. As Guest Poet for the 2006 Authors & Artists of the Sea session of Whale Camp on Grand Manaan Island, she edited Small as a World, Large as Alone, available on the Whale Camp website as a PDF download. Other publications include Poiesis, It Has Come To This: Poets of the Great Mother Conference, Block Island Poetry Project website, Philadelphia Poets, Blue Sofa Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal and the Painted Bride Quarterly among others. She is a founding member of The Delco Poets’ Cooperative, the first poetry organization in Delaware County which evolved into the present Mad Poets’ Society. In addition to her poetry and storytelling work, she is a book artist as well as the editor and publisher of Gwasg Cwtsh y Bardd (The Bard’s Cupboard Press). Beth is an avid TriYoga practitioner, recently becoming certified as a Basics teacher and is currently studying for further certification.